I'm in the club since yesterday.

Found a great one, playfield in great condition, everything working, it was routed sometime back in its history, but it's normal here - all games without exception are routed, no huo or nib to be found. The gentleman I bought it from really put serious effort to make it as beautiful and as good player as possible. It's the cleanest pin I've seen in my country, all of GI works, it has non-damaged and non-warped slingshot plastics, three mongols are there. Only one ring is missing.

I have several cries for help though:

1) it is a thing among operators here to disconnect EOS switches and degrade flipper mechs to standard contact without plastic interrupters and opto boards. MY shadow has this hack done, but fliptronic board seems ok (when I close EOS wires it registers in switch test so I guess it is not fried). Assuming that the voltage is still brought from fliptronic (I have to check today) does it still switch from 50V to low voltage when holding flippers up (I think I read something like computer does it after several ms) by itself or it really DOES need EOS switches in place for this? Additional bummer is that there is no staged flipping now.

2) battlefield has worked fine (motor checks fine in testing) for a while and started acting weird after several hours - paddle seems to get into repeated jerking as it is trying to kick it even when the ball is not in contact. Have someone had something like that happen? dirty optos, coil problems, transistor problems?

3) I would like to LED GI to reduce strain on GI circuit, but, alas, pinballcenter doesn't have enough warm white noflix GI leds in stock! How many of you use cool white frosted for GI and could you post a pic or point to one (I see lots of pics in this thread that I assume are cool leds but there is no description)? how many GI lighbulbs on playfield are there, manual doesn't list GI, only other lamps?

4) I can't turn down the volume to less than 8. Is this normal?

thanks, here's the pic of mine from last night.

the shadow.jpg

what kind of tip should shooter rod and ball through coil have for Shadow? the end of those on mine is gray plastic one same width as the pole of the shooter rod , not anything rubbery or wider than that.

thanks for the help!

here's my progress so far, thanks for the answers:

1. mutilated flipper circuit: it seems it gets voltage from fliptronic CPU, leads for leaf switches come off connector that go to the opto normally. I just noticed that this allows me to flip even in attract mode. can anyone confirm that this might be the artifact from this?

2. battlefield problem was battlefield plunger blocking the optos, it was that the coil stop was too tightly secured and pushed the sleeve slightly inwards making it unable for spring to bring back plunger to off position. fixed it and it works like a charm.

3. LEDS: several leds, warm and cool white and colored are in the mail, I'll experiment with GI lighting to achieve most beatiful effect possible. I turned to LEDs to save GI connectors from burning and now I found out (don't know how I missed it): connector was removed and wires soldered to the driver board something operaters here do on regular basis as well.

4. turned the volume down, thanks!

5. shooter tip: its grey plastic, does this mean I don't have to buy this *or something like it* because I don't have it on my Shadow: http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/38-1100W ???

6. switch 75 left ramp left made intermittently stops working, it's bad connection I'll fix it, but it also reports switch 31 left ramp entry. I can't find it, there are no switches on either ramp entry???

thanks Chrisg, Troutfarm and smiley.

on unrelated note: I waited few days to receive new balls (my brother bought it for me abroad and brought them today), didn't play it much, I thought it would take a while so I even took old pinballs to polishing . Few games today (my Shadow now has 49 plays since I got it) and I reached FINAL BATTLE!!!! I spent most of it trying to get a phone and record it and didn't succeed in either finishing it or filming it. It was in 3 ball play with one buy in. I bought one ball after a very successful victory on the battlefield and several modes done, I used the buy in to enter khan and shadow multiballs and imagine my surprise after I got CONGRATULATIONS PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THE FINAL BATTLE. setting were medium with left outlane post on middle, right on down (didn;t notice it was like this when I bought it) I only put maximum extra balls per ball in play to one. Kind of dissapointed, I'm mediocre player at best...since left ramp left made switch intermittently stops working no vengeances in that game and the score is just 1.03 billion points. no pics so nobody will believe me, can it be shown in some of audits?

my did the exactly same thing. check if battlefield plunger is blocking the optos. in my case the coil was too tightly screwed in and the coil sleeve couldn't move freely so the spring didn't have enough tension to make it retract. loosened it a bit and now it works 100%.

I asked the same question two weeks (and one page) ago and received answer it shouldn't have a rubber tip, just a metal plunger with plastic grey top (correct).

I think I found out why my enter left ramp opto isn't working. I suspect someone has reversed transmitter and receiver and soldered them other way around.

What side should the white one be, left or right? On my right ramp white one is on the left side. On my
left ramp (not working) white one is on the right side.

White is transmitter, right?

I'm also interested in this, I miss one, too. If you buy one, maybe he could sell the other to me?

thanks, luckily it seems to be wired correctly even with switched sides, because when I found out left ramp left made switch had broken ground contact and soldered it back, optos started working as well! Unfortunately I lost a little gizmo plate that goes on the end of the micro screws that hold microswitch together. does anybody knows where to get another one?

can optos triggered by sunlight? I noticed strange behavior in switch test with large amount of harsh sunlight hitting the playfield.

could you circle the area where you feel the bumps, I don't see any. My shadow does the same thing from time to time, not very common, but it happens, scares the s* out of me, it sounds like something explodes.

you probably have it figured out, but let it be said for someone in the future. on my shadow switch is activated by a falling wall, not by a metal bar. It was acting up when the wall target was broken on the bottom, but I resolved it with a thick layer of electrical tape holding it together. trick is to get the bar to raise the wall target high enough for a small pin driven by the coil in the upper end of the target to have a chance of holding it through. if it just barely reaches it, the target would just fall down prematurely. i saved 12 eur plus shipping with electrical tape, so probably no need to buy a new target if your switch is registering and coils working.

thanks for that, my right diverter needs rebuilding also, I've been playing without it for long. Marco's site shows these items are out of stock.

it is one year anniversary of me having a Shadow pinball and I don't think it's going anywhere soon. Great flow and geometry, it makes me sometimes just enjoy getting ball up to high speed and running smoothly, great zen feeling of empty mind and oneness with the energy flow while playing it. Would love some budget suggestion about other pins with same quality (but as different as possible to add some variety, for instance, with a left upper flipper).

However I noticed some things I suspect might not be like that on every machine:

1) If you hold upper flipper while the ball is coming via inner loop, you don't hit side saucer - instead it goes right into left outlane. To hit a saucer you have to time the flip to where the ball is mid flipper and slam it. I like it better this way, it make you work for it and the feeling you slam the ball and it starts Khan is fantastic. This coupled with new rubbers on mode start saucer lane makes starting modes and getting to final battle tough on my copy.

However, I find orbit shots interesting and non-symetrical, can you check if this is what Brian Eddy intended:

2) left orbit functions like a loop pass, it feeds to right flipper
3) right orbit is different - it feeds to left flipper, but only if it is raised. If the flipper is down, it is a drain 100% of the time on any smooth fast right orbit shot. Raised flipper also bounces ball high up the playfield out of control, so no loop passes to right flipper unless I master some better catch technique.

I think mine is also orangey, will have to check. Also, I had Fish Tales where fisherman skin was yellow, not pinkish and all other colors were vibrant. I asked here if it is fade and got an answer that basically PFs don't sun fade. I later found pics of both fisherman skin colors on the net, so I guess this could be just different process and maybe the faded one is born faded.

Hi, haven't been coming here for quite some time (2 yrs or more), haven't been firing up my Shadow much either in that time and now it has developed a strange DMD issue that reminds me of something I read here while ago, but I can't find it anymore and I tried searching all kinds of DMD issues. Namely, the letters shown on DMD are not in the same row anymore, they are alternating a-little-above then a-little-below in a wobbly pattern much more prominent with bigger fonts than with regular letters, they each have a fixed offset and go up and down, it is annoying and looks disturbing and is a symptom of something promising to fail further (DMD also started degassing). Has anyone seen anything like it, is it memory problem, wonky connections? Thanks